Pokemon Ameliorate
by Durecel
Summary: Alistair is an 18 year old who has just moved to the Kalos region. His sixth in 18 years. Half-Kanto, half-Orre, he aspires to take on Mt. Battle. Follow him as he travels across the regions he's called home to grow as a trainer and as a person. Rated T for language and themes. A story that's been nearly four years in the making. No pressure then...
1. Chapter 1

**Welcome one and all to my third attempt at making a Pokemon Fanfic, where hopefully third time will be the charm. Fingers crossed that all goes well and you'll be able to see all that I have planned out and more.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the Pokémon franchise, and do not profit monetarily from this work in any way.**

 **Without further ado, let us begin.**

* * *

 **Pokemon Ameliorate**

 **Arc 1: Kalos**

 **Part 1: Dreams and Work. Chapter 1: "The Girl Next Door."**

" _Non ducor, duco."_ Latin proverb; I am not led, I lead.

 **Vaniville Town**

Mid morning in the southern Kalos town was a quaint sight to behold; the idyllic picture postcard village. Whilst its name suggested that it was as large as a town, in reality it was only the size of a small village, with about 300 residents at best.

Two of those residents were new arrivals; a mother and her son. She was an Orre citizen hailing from the desert region's beautifully lush volcanic region in the north, her son was born in the urban metropolis of Celadon City in the Kanto region. The son's father, a Colonel in the Air Force, was constantly out on deployment around the world. Currently he was out coordinating disaster relief for a city region in the southern hemisphere that had suffered a catastrophic earthquake in the past couple of days.

Originally the family were all going to move into their new cottage together, but just as they finished packing up for the big move, the father got the call that he was to be deployed. It had been disheartening, but not a surprise.

Throughout the son's life, his family had moved all across the globe, and if it wasn't for job commitments, it was only ever two of the three dealing with the entirety of the leg work; the son always being one of the pair.

They had always moved for one reason or another, be it the father being relocated to a different station, or the mother being hired for a job in another region. The last reason had been because of the son acquiring a job that necessitated relocating yet again.

This time however, it was the Mother's decision to relocate as she had decided to retire from her career and start to take things slowly. Her name was Grace, an internationally famous Ryhorn jockey, with numerous wins under her belt and several world and regional jockeying titles to her name. She'd decided to start taking things easy, away from the limelight that came with her fame.

Part of the reason she'd chosen to move to Kalos was because of the beautiful countryside, partly for the quiet ambiance that Vaniville Town provided, but mostly for one thing; Kalos' privacy laws. Specifically its law regarding paparazzi photography; paparazzi photography was tantamount to stalking and thus illegal.

Sure, there'd be the odd photographer try to take an illicit photo, but it couldn't be much worse than where they'd lived previously.

As Grace wondered about the house, getting used to where everything was even after a few days of living there, she noticed that the time was getting on. It was almost ten in the morning and her son was still to wake up. She motioned for her little fletchling; Fletchy, to come and perch upon her hand. The little bird flittered over to her trainer's hand, looking up at Grace expectantly.

"Fletchy, darling, could you be a dear and go wake up Alistair for me please?" She asked whilst giving the tiny robin a single fingered nuzzle. Now with her orders though, the little fletchling flew off upstairs to locate her trainer's errant son.

Flapping her wings, Fletchy swooped into Alistair's room, the sleeping youth having forgotten to completely close his door the previous night; he'd been so exhausted he'd not remembered to do so. The tiny robin pokemon perched itself on top of one of the boxes that Alistair hadn't had a chance to unload yet. From her perch, Fletchy could see that her trainer's son was fast asleep, snuggled up with a little orange fluff ball.

Cocking her head to the side as if she was thinking how best to wake the two redheads up. Trying her uplifting lilt caused Alistair to do little more than stir under his duvet, and the little fluff ball to let out a snore; earning it a bonk on the head from the human.

Having failed to wake the two up in a reasonable manner, Fletchy opted for a more direct approach. She hoped off her perch onto the bedside table and then onto Alistair's head. Already it was having the desired effect of discomforting the teenager, but the tiny robin was not done just yet. From her unimpressed perch, she began to peck the little ball of fluffy orange feathers quite vigorously and unrelentingly.

Displeased groans and chirps from the two lazy creatures woke them both up. The little orange ball of feathers was the least impressed, as with a big breath it unleashed a string of fairly precise shots of embers from its little yellow beak at the fletchling.

With Fletchy's mission accomplished, and somewhat startled by the angry response she got, she quickly fluttered up off of Alistair's head, which in turn shot up; unable to take anymore disturbances between Fletchy's being on his head and his partner's noticeably hot attack not missing his head by much.

"God dam it Fletchy!" Alistair shouted as he landed chin first on the floor in an attempt to try to avoid the scrap that was now occurring in his new room. Quickly realising what was likely to happen to his bedroom if he didn't intervene in the battle between his and his mother's pokemon, Alistair got to his feet and attempted to catch at least one of the belligerent pokemon in his hands.

However, it didn't go quite as skilfully as he had hopped; it turned out that Benny Hill's iconic theme would have been far more appropriate than Mission Impossible's which Alistair would have preferred.

In his attempt to capture at least one of the scrapping pokemon, Alistair ended up on the receiving end of scratches, pecks, embers and even the odd quick attack. The last of which resulted in his falling halfway down the stairs. Landing on his chin for a second time in less than thirty seconds was not quite how he had expected to start his day off.

"Ow…" Soon afterward, his bed partner also fell down the stairs, bouncing off of his head and landing on its arse in front of his face. "Gotcha!" Alistair shouted as he clamped his rogue pokemon with both hands. The pair looked crossly at each other, before they noticed Fletchy effortlessly swoop down and land on Grace's shoulder. "Oh dear," the redhead muttered as he saw his mother loom over him.

"Thank you Fletchy." Grace thanked her pokemon, giving her a couple of bird seeds to enjoy. Gobbling the food offered to her, Fletchy flew off out to the front garden to her favourite perch. Grace then let out an unimpressed sigh, accentuating it by having her hands on her hips. "Honestly Alistair, it's 20 minutes past 11 and you've only just gotten up."

"In my defence, I did most of the heavy lifting yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that." He replied as he stood up, rubbing his sore chin in the process.

"That's hardly an excuse for a fit young man; especially when I've been getting up at six in the morning every morning for the past however many years." Grace retorted, slightly annoyed by her son's attitude.

"Remind me again whose idea it was to keep Rhyrhy?" This constant backchat led to an argument between mother and son about all the pet peeves each had for the other. It wasn't that the two hated each other, far from it; they loved each other dearly. It was just with all the stress of moving yet again that the two of them were on shorter fuses than normal, and Alistair's habit of lying in late was one of Grace's biggest pet peeves of all.

* * *

At the same time as Alistair's restless waking up, next door another teenager was helping her mother out making lunch for the pair of them and her younger brother. Her name was Serena; she was 16 years old and had recently finished studying at the Pokémon Trainer School. She'd graduated as her cohort's valedictorian having done her speciality exams in battling and medicine.

The teenager had dark blonde hair tied into a low pony-tail that cascaded down to the middle of her back. She was wearing a dark grey sleeveless top that was pulled taught because of how she had it tucked into her skirt. Her skirt was an orangish-red colour that clung tightly to her stomach before it fanned out around her waist in pleats which ended at her upper thighs, showing a little bit of skin off as she also wore mid thigh length socks.

"Serena honey, do you want to go take that letter from work next door before we both forget?" her mother reminded her as she grabbed a trio of apples out of the fridge.

"Sure Mom, let me just wash these for you first," She almost dropped the three apples when there was a sudden bang reverberated around the house. "What was that?"

"It felt like it came from next door. They probably dropped a heavy box by accident; I hope there was nothing fragile in it." Serena's Mother mused aloud, not knowing that it was actually Alistair crash landing at the bottom of the stairs.

Serena quickly washed and dried the apples before she went and slipped a pair of sneakers on and grabbed the A4-sized brown envelope for her neighbours from her bag. Opening her front door she was met with a beautiful site of apple and peach blossoms in full bloom from the two trees in her garden, the clear blue skies acting as the perfect background for the delicate flowers. She walked out of her front gate, making the pace and a half walk necessary to reach her new neighbour's front gate.

Walking into the front garden, Serena noticed what she thought was a life-sized statue of a rhyhorn in to her right, with a fletchling roosting on its head. She looked at it intently for about a minute. When it snorted and opened its eye in her direction the poor teenager nearly jumped out of her skin – falling flat on her arse in surprise, causing the fletchling to fly into the house through an open window having been shocked itself.

"Oh my God you're real!" Getting up and dusting her backside off, Serena reached out her hand tentatively to the rhyhorn which didn't even flinch. The spikes pokemon was quite content to let the blonde teenager give its horn a pat. "I'm sorry Rhyhorn, I didn't realise you were real." The ground type huffed approvingly in response.

"Yeah?! Well unlike you I actually liked working in Unova!" the loud shout echoed out the open window, catching Serena completely off guard. Hearing the outburst, Serena debated whether it was a good idea to try and introduce herself to the newcomers whilst tensions were obviously a bit high in her neighbour's house.

"Oh well, no time like the present, right?" Serena was surprised when Rhyhorn grunted in reply.

* * *

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Grace asked incredulously, more than a little upset by her son's implications. Before things could get any more heated, there was a firm knock at the door. Reckoning that it was likely a neighbour coming to introduce themselves, Grace realised that her son was not washed, still looked half-asleep and only had a pair of pyjama bottoms on. Not wanting to give a bad impression, or make an already bad impression worse given the volume and tone of their argument, Grace shot Alistair an icy glare that would've given a glalie the chills. "Go and get ready."

Had they been in their last town, Alistair wouldn't have been too fussed about being caught looking as dishevelled as he currently was; however, new town, new people, probably a good idea to follow his mother's order. Still with his partner in his hand, Alistair went back upstairs to the bathroom, whilst Grace went to get the door.

"Hello there, can I help you?" Grace greeted, slightly surprised to be faced by a teenage girl with a brown envelope in her hands.

"Hi! My name's Serena, I'm from next door. You met my parents and little brother yesterday." If this girl had heard the argument Grace had had with Alistair, she was doing an awfully good job of hiding it.

"Oh yes, your mam and dad said you were in Lumiose City, right? Come in, come in." Grace invited Serena in. When the teenager went to take her shoes off, Grace just told her to leave them on as the house was still a bit of a mess having only just set the first box down two days previously. "Please excuse the mess. We're still working out where to put the majority of things," Grace informed the teenager, somewhat embarrassed by the amount of boxes that still needed unpacking.

"Honestly, it's fine. My parents were probably the same when they moved in." Serena mused to reassure the older woman. Grace invited the teenage girl to have a seat and asked if she would like anything to drink, which Serena politely declined.

The two got into a conversation to get to know each other, Serena telling Grace that she'd lived in Vaniville all her life and was about to start volunteering for an ecology project, which was why she had been in Lumiose City yesterday. In turn, Grace told Serena about where she and her family had lived over the past 20 years, telling the teenager that they'd migrated to Unova previously because Alistair had got a job as a research assistant in Castellia City.

Just as Serena was about to ask what kind of research Alistair did, the man in question came downstairs.

"Speak of the devil. Alistair, this is Serena. She's next door's daughter." Grace introduced her son to Serena. Serena herself stood up, wanting to make a good first impression to her neighbour's son. She was pretty sure she'd managed to do so with Grace.

"It's nice to meet you Alistair," Serena said as Alistair came over to the open plan living area. She offered him her hand to shake which he took.

"Likewise Serena," Alistair motioned for Serena to sit back down on the sofa she'd just been on before he sat down next to his mother.

Serena noticed that Alistair had a pokeball attached to his belt, having missed it prior to sitting down because of the way his t-shirt had been hanging over it. There was something about the pokeball though that seemed different, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what.

"Serena was just saying that she's starting a volunteer job for a research project, Alistair. Maybe you can give her a couple of hints and tips?"

"Well, I can try, but it depends on what kind of project. Actually, would you excuse me for a second; I'm just going to grab something to drink, can I get you both anything?" The redhead pardoned himself to go to the kitchen after Grace and Serena said they were both OK for the moment. The two women heard Alistair moving around the kitchen, but Serena's attention was suddenly caught by what sounded like claws on the polished wood floor before it transitioned to claws on tiles. "Oh there you are, I was wondering where you'd gone."

Before Serena could ask Grace who Alistair was talking to, the man himself came back into view. Alistair had a glass of what was probably orange juice in his right hand. He was about to pop it down on the glass coffee table when he noticed a glint of adoration in Serena's eyes. His initial thought was that her eyes were trained on him, but quickly realised they were looking at his little companion perched on his shoulder.

"Oh wow!" Serena exclaimed, getting to her feet in an instant. "You have a torchic! I've never seen one in real life before!" Alistair was about to say that she could hold him if she wanted to, however the first syllable hadn't even left his lips before Serena had plucked Torchic off his shoulder and spun him around with girlish glee. "You're even cuter in the flesh than you look in pictures!" She held Torchic to her face, nuzzling the chick pokemon's face with her cheek. "And you're so warm too,"

Poor Torchic didn't really know what to do, sure Grace and Alistair fussed him regularly but never to quite such an extent. Realising that Torchic probably wanted to be put down now, Serena let go of him. He subsequently scurried over to Alistair and jumped up onto his lap where he plonked himself down like a small child would.

"I think she likes you Torchic!" Alistair joked, giving the fire type's feathers a little ruffle and then rubbing his chin underneath his beak.

"He's so adorable, where did you get him?" Serena asked, clearly not disheartened by Torchic running away from her. She didn't expect Alistair to look or sound glum in response to her question.

"I got him when we lived in Hoenn when I was, what, ten?"

"Eight years ago, so yeah, you would have been nine or ten." Grace confirmed.

Serena was slightly off put by how stoic both Alistair and Grace had been in answer to her question. Up until now, Grace had been much cheerier and enthusiastic when talking to her. It wasn't as if the pair of them were upset, at least they didn't sound or look it, but more as if they weren't really sure what to say. Believing that it must have been a tough subject for them Serena changed tact when she realised she was still holding the envelope she'd come to deliver.

"By the way, I came to drop this off to you both actually." The teenager said, handing the brown envelope over to Grace.

"For us?" Alistair asked. He was pretty confused as the envelope was clearly too big to be a moving in card, and Serena's parents had given them one yesterday.

"It's from the head of the facility I'm doing the volunteering for. He's Kalos' top authority on Pokémon; Professor Sycamore." Serena answered proudly. Alistair knew the name, he'd read a couple of the professor's papers when he'd been at school and whilst he was working in Unova. Grace must have heard the name as well as she quizzed her son.

"Prof. Sycamore…? Isn't that the one Professor-?"

"Yeah, he is." Alistair cut his mother off mid question, obviously knowing what she was going to ask.

"Well he certainly has beautiful handwriting," Grace thought aloud as she read the address on the envelope. "But that's something Alistair and I can read later. Serena, why don't you bring your family around? I know we met them yesterday, but I'm sure we'd all like to get to know each other a bit more." Grace suggested.

"Yeah that actually sounds nice, Mum. If you want Serena, I'll go with you. You ok with that Torchic?"

Torchic let out a chirp of approval.

 **Arc 1: Kalos. Part 1: Dreams and Work, Chapter 1: "The Girl Next Door." Fin.**

* * *

 **A/N: Right, that went well I think. And it should be, in my eyes at least, seeing as how I started writing this chapter on the 15th November 2015 and only finished it on the 11th April 2017. Now I should point out that it's not taken me a year and a half to write about 3000 words, that'd be pretty bad going.**

 **So here's the background to this story; I dreamt this up not long after Gen VI came out in 2014. The first plan I started writing was on the 18th November 2013, the first draft I started two days later. And between then and now I've been trying to plan out as much of the storyline as is reasonably possible.**

 **You'll have noticed from my author's introduction bit at the top that this is my third attempt at writing a Pokémon fan fiction. Arguably that's cause for alarm as I deleted my first one about nine years ago, and the second one didn't amount to much either- it's still there if you want to have a look see how much my writing's changed.**

 **Unlike those last two however - I've planned as much out as I can - and instead of just writing when I feel like to no set schedule, as I have with other series, this time I'm going to try and change that. By the time you're reading this Author's Notes I will hopefully have at least the next five chapters written and finished. Five is my minimum, 12 is what I'm aiming for. This is so that I have a buffer zone in case I'm taken ill for whatever reason and am unable to be as productive as I would normally be.**

 **At the time of writing - 11th April 2017 - I hope to get one chapter published per day, with an eleven chapter buffer. My publishing rate/schedule will depend on what my rate of progress is. As I've said I would like it to be one per day, though realistically it will probably be one per week.**

 **Anyway, that's out the way, next time Alistair will see Aquacorde Town for the first time. I hope you have enjoyed this first chapter – I've certainly enjoyed writing it – and please leave a review if you have as well as any ways that I can improve. To this day I still adhere to a bit of advice I was given on my first Pokémon story ten years ago. That's it from me, see you next time, adios!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well sadly, I sincerely doubt we'll be getting one chapter a day anytime soon. Much to my annoyance, however that's just how inspiration and writer's block go. Luckily we're not having writer's block, so don't worry about that. As for the buffer... Yeah that's not as far along as I had hoped. Chapter 3 is about half written at the moment. Should be ready by next week though. Anyway, let's get under way shall we?**

* * *

 **Kalos Arc**

 **Part 1: Dreams and Work. Chapter 2:**

 **Vaniville Town**

The arrival of his neighbours had been a welcome surprise in every aspect apart from one. And that was sorting dinner out. Grace was adamant that there was nothing in the fridge, freezer or any of the cupboards, however, that didn't stop her son for completely raiding the entire contents of all three.

Alistair was about two draws into the freezer before he stumbled upon something akin to the jackpot. He took it out of the freezer; it was just bigger than the palm of his hand. It was a perfect start he thought.

Grace let out a subtle sigh as she sat in the living room, listening to Serena talking about one of her mother's battles she'd watched as a kid. Admittedly it sounded like it had been a quite a riveting one, but that didn't detract Grace from feeling underwhelming as she was sure there was not enough food in the house for a dinner for five.

* * *

That was until she heard a cry of 'MUM!' coming from the kitchen. "Would you excuse me please? Just for a moment." Grace excused herself, dashing into the kitchen where she was greeted with a disgruntled looking Alistair looking at her. In his hand was what he'd found in the freezer. "What is it dear?"

"Mother, what is this?" He asked, lifting the item up to emphasise his point.

"It's a crab, Alistair."

"I know that, why didn't you mention earlier that we had one?" The redhead deadpanned.

* * *

A couple of minutes later Alistair reappeared into the living room to relieve the bemused Serena and her family.

"Sorry about that, just to let you know that there are three options for dinner. Option three is quite creamy and appetising, but, if you want it done perfectly it'd require you having to come back tomorrow.

"Option two; similar idea to option three but it can be done tonight and is likely to be more filling than option three, however, it would appear quite homely and melodramatic.

"Finally, option one is something completely different; refreshing, filling and looks amazing, only problem with it is that it may be a tad spicy… Not sure how much you guys like spice?"

Serena turned to her parents, who in turn looked at her younger brother, who then looked back at Serena. All of them looked a bit confused and unsure at their new neighbour's options. The blonde daughter smiled awkwardly at Alistair before giving her answer.

"Option one sounds good. Can we at least find out what it is though?"

Grace, who had walked in behind her son whilst he had been explaining the options, gave Alistair's answer before he could.

"Alistair's always done things like this when he's had more than one idea for dinner, but he always keeps everything on a need-to-know-basis… Even I don't know what he's planning now.

"Before he goes to get whatever's needed, are there any allergies we need to know about?"

Serena and her family all shook their heads in unison.

"Perfect, I'll be back in an hour!" Alistair declared. He was mid turn on his heels when Serena spoke up.

"Hang on a minute; I'll come with you, Alistair." She insisted as she stood up.

"Sure, the more the merrier, ain't that right Torchic?" The little chick pokemon chirped happily in agreement with his trainer.

"Tor-chick-Tor!"

* * *

The pair left the house into the front garden. Serena was expecting that they'd head straight out of the front gate. Instead, Alistair veered left to what she had originally thought was a statue of a rhyhorn.

"You ever rode a rhyhorn before, Serena?" Alistair asked as he gave the ground/rock type a pat on the head, earning him an affectionate grumble from the spikes pokemon.

"Never, there's a rhyhorn racetrack just outside of Santalune City, but my family and I never gave it much thought to be honest." The mousy blonde replied, watching as Alistair hoisted himself onto the pokemon's back, Torchic still on his shoulder. The redhead held out his hand to help his neighbour up onto the back of the ground/rock type. "Is this your rhyhorn, Alistair?"

"No no, Rhyrhy here is my mother's. He's a retired racing rhyhorn who Mum used to race before she retired too, aren't ya boy?" Alistair answered, rubbing Rhyrhy's neck affectionately. The rhyhorn let another happy mutter out, like a kitten mewling. "Sadly, his original owner passed away not long after my mum won the Grand National in Nimbasa City on him last year. But he bequeathed Rhyrhy to my mother as he knew that Rhyrhy loved being ridden by her and that he knew Mum thought Rhyrhy was the best rhyhorn she'd ever ridden." The young adult explained as Rhyrhy started to walk out of the cottage's front garden.

"Wait, this rhyhorn's won the Grand National in Unova?!" Serena asked in astonishment.

"Yep. He's the first non-thoroughbred ever to win a Unova Grand National." Rhyrhy let out a triumphant roar hearing about his achievement.

"Wow, you're certainly a special one, aren't you Rhyrhy?" Serena cooed leaning around Alistair to give Rhyrhy's a fuss, again making the spikes pokemon mewl. "Care to show a girl a Grand National winner at top speed?"

Rhyrhy stopped to shake his head disapprovingly at the question.

"Sorry, but Rhyrhy doesn't like running on tarmac, and he knows I'm not as competent a rider as my Mum is. So he probably doesn't want to get in trouble with Mum if either of us falls off because he went galloping too fast."

Serena sighed in defeat, accepting that it wouldn't be in anyone's best interest to fall off a galloping rhyhorn. Instead of getting hung up over it, she accepted that she would just enjoy her first rhyhorn ride; how many of her friends could say they've ridden a Grand National winner anyway?

* * *

 **Aquacorde Town**

Aquacorde Town was only a stone's through away from Vaniville Town, so it didn't take long for the young twosome to make it to the local market, which was where Serena had insisted on going to.

Initially Alistair had been sceptical about the idea, until he realised that he was more likely to get decent ingredients in an actual market.

As the two teenagers walked around the market, Alistair constantly and consistently stopped at different stalls to check over the produce on offer, taking a sample look at some of the foods on offer before putting them back most of the time. Even though it had been Serena's idea to come down to the market, she was often curious of what much of the items on offer actually were. Alistair would then explain to her what it was and what it were often used in if he knew.

At one point Serena picked up a ripe looking red berry, the main body of which seemed to have spiky protrusions poking underneath the skin. Alistair hadn't been looking at the time until she'd taken a bite out of it at the go ahead of the vendor. The look on the vendor's face was a picture; doing his utmost to not burst out laughing.

The messy-blonde's face was one of mild horror as she quickly worked out she'd just taken a reasonable bite out of something incredibly spicy. Alistair simply looked at the vendor and sighed.

"I hope you realise you've just eaten a tamato berry, right?"

Serena's response came through a collection of gasps for air trying to cool her mouth down.

"It's a bit late to be telling me that now!"

* * *

 **Vaniville Town**

Later in the afternoon, Serena and her family were sat around the dining room table, waiting patiently for Alistair's surprise dish, which turned out to be a spicy crab linguine. All eyes in the room lit up when Grace and Alistair brought the plates out, the various aromas wafting into the room made their guests salivate in anticipation. After all the plates had been served, Grace sat down whilst Alistair had gone back to the kitchen for something else. He came back with a bottle of dry kabinett riesling white wine. The redhead asked if Serena's father would like to sample some to which he affirmed, having a sip of the wine before giving it the thumbs up.

Alistair then proceeded to pour Serena's mother, Grace, Serena's father and then himself a glass each. "Serena, would you like some too?"

"I'm sorry but I'm only 16." She answered awkwardly.

"That's fine, we're in private." Alistair replied. Serena looked at her parents who both nodded in approval for their daughter to have some.

"OK, but only a small glass, thanks."

After a few mouthfuls of pasta, Serena's father asked where Alistair had learned to cook from. Before he could answer, because of a mouthful of his own, Grace answered for him.

"When Alistair was a toddler, we found that he was allergic to a lot of different types of food; nuts, eggs, and certain types of fruit and vegetables - which thankfully he's grown out of. So because he had had so many bad experiences he was too scared to try new things.

"My husband suggested when Alistair was about ten or eleven that he learned to cook, to get over his fear."

Washing down his previous bite of pasta with a sip of wine, Alistair picked up where Grace left off.

"Mum and Dad taught me how to prepare and cook some kinds of food, like spaghetti bolognese, roast dinners, a couple of different soups, stews and the like. Then when I felt competent with all those, I started looking up new and different recipes: This being one of them."

Serena was twirling a forkful of spaghetti around her last pieces of crab when she asked Alistair a question of her own. "Speaking of your Dad, Alistair, do you mind if I ask where he is?"

"Hmm? Dad's a serving Air Force Colonel. We were all meant to move in together yesterday, but he was called up to be deployed to that city state in the southern hemisphere that suffered an earthquake last week, a few days before we were due to leave Unova."

"Reborn City's where he's been posted. He's leading a part of the recuperation effort in the hardest hit wards apparently." Grace elaborated. "It's meant to be a two week deployment, but he could be out there for as long as two years…"

The mood around the table became somewhat sombre at the prospect of Alistair's Father being away for such a long time. In an effort to improve the mood, Serena's Mother rekindled the conversation by commenting on how good the wine was and how well it went with the meal.

"I don't suppose you could teach our daughter to cook like this?" She jokingly asked, at Serena's expense.

"Mom…"

"Oh I jest dear. Serena's more into learning about pokemon battling than of inheriting her mother's culinary skills."

"What culinary skills?" Serena deadpanned, making her father burst out laughing, followed by Alistair who had tried to keep quiet. Soon everyone was laughing and having a good time exchanging various stories again.

* * *

A few hours later and everyone were sat in the lounge, enjoying an evening drink. Serena's Father had briefly gone back to his house to get a bottle of whiskey, of which he was now enjoying a sip out of a glass tumbler. Serena and Alistair had both tried some, neither of whom reacted positively to it. After discovering she wasn't a fan of whiskey; Serena, as well as her mother and Grace, had opted to have a coffee whilst they continued their conversations. Alistair on the other hand had decided to see if he could get accustomed to whiskey by mixing a cheap sour-mash whiskey his dad had bought him for his 18th birthday with a can of cola.

"Oh my, is that the time?" Serena's Mother asked, noticing that it was getting on in the evening. "We should probably get going soon."

"Wow, time flies when you're having fun. Don't feel as though we're forcing you to leave though just because it's late." Grace insisted to her guests.

"No no, Serena is meeting up with some of her friends in Aquacorde Town tomorrow morning. They're going to get their first pokemon! It's so exciting!" Serena then looked at Alistair.

"Hey Alistair, do you want to come with me to Aquacorde tomorrow morning?"

"Sure. How early is tomorrow morning?"

"It'll be the middle of the night by your standards, young man." Grace pointed out.

 **Arc 1: Kalos. Part 1: Dreams and Work, Chapter 2: "Chez Ali." Fin.**

* * *

 **A/N: Short chapter is short, mind I started it on 13th August 2014. Yeah, I had the second chapter thought up before the first chapter, I know, I'm weird like that...**

 **Not much more to add to be honest, however; next chapter will be much longer than this one, don't worry. It's already at 1700 words, and it's only a third done, so yeah, that's that. Next time, Alistair meets Shauna, Trevor and Tierno, and we get our first battle! Look forward to that. Adios!**


End file.
